Comfort Zone
by lilyleia78
Summary: A nightmare has John reaching out for comfort. To his surprise, Rodney reaches back. McShep.


John woke up shaking, sweating, and still feeling the legs of thousands of invisible bugs crawling over and under his skin. He sat up and called the lights up to dim even as he struggled to get his breathing back under control. John looked around methodically, checking for unseen threats by the soft glow of Atlantis's walls.

_Nightmare, just a nightmare_. His heart rate slowed as he reassured himself that he was still in Atlantis, home and safe and bug free. He dropped his face into his still-blue hands and huffed. _Well, relatively bug free_.

John groped for his comm with one hand and hailed Rodney before he even thought to see what time it was. A quick glance showed it was nearly four in the morning - later even than Rodney usually worked.

Oops. Oh well, he reasoned, if Rodney was tired enough he'd sleep through it.

"Is something about to sink, flood or explode?" Rodney asked groggily into John's ear. John allowed himself a smile as he imagined McKay faceplanted, probably still fully dressed, on top of his bed.

"No," John admitted, feeling more than a little foolish for calling in the first place. The constant need to reach out to Rodney was something he was usually better at repressing. "At least not that anyone's told me."

"Sheppard?" Rodney sounded a little more awake now, but confused. "What's wrong?"

John sighed, and then immediately hoped that his mike hadn't picked it up. That was a valid question, unfortunately he couldn't really answer with the truth - which was 'I'm lonely and I love you.' No, that probably wouldn't go over as well as it did in some of his fantasies.

"John?" Rodney asked, now sounding fully awake and on the edge of full fledged panic. "Are you okay? Did something happen? Oh God. It's the bug thing isn't it? You're regressing and you've called to challenge me as your obvious intellectual superior. Crap, I never should have trusted Carson's voodoo magic to heal you. Don't worry, John, stay calm. I'll get Ronon down there right away. With his gun. I'll take over the research and let the real scientists "

John felt himself relax further as the torrent of Rodney's words washed away the last dregs of his nightmare. It was tempting to just let Rodney go on and rant John back to sleep, but he knew Rodney would eventually shut up and notice his snoring.

Or actually send Ronon to shoot him, and that was no joking matter.

"Stop it, McKay, I'm not regressing."

Rodney's tirade stopped abruptly. "Oh," he said, "Are you sure?"

John eased himself back down onto his back. "Yep. Still only blue in my hands and in no way, shape, or form threatened by your 'intellectual superiority.'" John was almost sure he managed to keep the air quotes out of his voice.

"Oh." Rodney repeated. John loved it when he reduced the greatest blabbermouth in two galaxies to near speechlessness. "Then, umm, why are you calling me?"

John shrugged even though he knew Rodney couldn't see him. "Don't know. Seemed the thing to do - have a crisis, call McKay."

"So there is a crisis?" Rodney asked, though at least this time he seemed more confused than concerned.

"No, no crisis," John said, contradicting himself. "I just " John swallowed his pride. He probably owed the guy a truth or two after waking him at four in the morning to satisfy his own whims. "I had a nightmare, okay? I just needed " John sighed again and forced himself to continue. "I just needed to hear a friendly voice. I didn't check the time first. Sorry."

Rodney was quiet for a long time - probably planning ways to interrupt John's sleep patterns with impromptu alarms and erratic environmental controls for the next week - but when Rodney finally answered he didn't sound mad, only curious. "And you called me?"

"Yeah." And obviously that had been a mistake, because Rodney was way too smart to not read significance into that. Or maybe not, he'd been missing all John's flirting for well over a year by now.

"Why?" Rodney asked, and there was something new in his voice that John couldn't identify.

John considered making a joke, something about Teyla and Ronon being much scarier to wake up, but then Rodney might think he was John's last choice, and that was so far from the truth that John couldn't stomach it. "I don't know," he lied instead. "Go back to bed, Rodney, it won't happen again. Sorry."

"But why me, John?" Rodney asked again. John pretended he hadn't heard the question, cut the connection and tossed his comm back onto the table. He was such an idiot.

John got back out of bed and slipped into his bathroom to splash some cool water on his face. He stared at himself in the mirror, eyes back to their usual hazel color. "Stupid, Sheppard," he growled at himself. "Really stupid."

"What's stupid?"

John whirled around, groping for a thigh holster that wasn't there and spotted Rodney standing just outside the entrance to the bathroom. "Rodney, how'd you get in here?"

Rodney ignored the question. "You weren't answering your comm."

"I thought I locked the door," John said, eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Atlantis let you in?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Genius, remember?" He grinned then, his trademark self-satisfied smirk that John always wanted to wipe off Rodney's face with his tongue. "Besides," Rodney continued, "you may have the pretty genetics, but Atlantis knows who takes care of her. Now, what's stupid?"

"You're jealousy over my pretty genes is stupid," John shot back.

Rodney didn't take the bait. "Sheppard, you and I both know I'll keep hounding you until the problem's solved. Just answer the question."

"Now I'm a problem to be solved?" John asked, faking anger in hopes of throwing Rodney off the subject, and shoved his way past Rodney to flop back down on his bed.

Rodney threw up his hands and followed John, sitting down on the edge of the narrow bed so that his hip was pressed against John's. "I never said that," he huffed, "and don't think I don't know what you're doing."

"Trying to sleep while an annoying man yammers at me?" John asked, throwing one arm over his eyes and doing his best impression of a man trying to sleep.

"Avoiding my question," Rodney answered. "Why'd you call me John?"

John groaned and threw an arm over his eyes. "Obviously because I'm a glutton for punishment. Can we just drop this, Rodney? I've already said I'll never do it again, okay?"

"That's not " Rodney cut himself off with a sigh, like _John_ was being the annoying one. "Listen, if you're not going to answer me I'm just going to have to test out my theory another way."

"Oh, yeah," John said, resigned, "what's that?"

Rodney didn't answer out loud, but John felt a hand trace it's way across the arm over his eyes and thick, blunt fingers interlace with his own.

Startled, John lifted the arm off his eyes only to find Rodney's face inches from his own. Rodney guided their joined hands above John's head and leaned closer.

"Rodney," John breathed across Rodney's lips, but Rodney cut off anything further by kissing John, slowly, cautiously, as if he was waiting for John to push him away.

John couldn't think of anything he wanted to do less than push Rodney away. He moaned and used his free hand to reach up and pull Rodney closer, wrapping his fingers in the short hairs at Rodney's neck and opening his mouth in invitation.

An invitation Rodney greedily accepted, his mouth growing more insistent as he swallowed John's second moan. John could hardly believe that this was happening to him. Rodney McKay, object of John's secret daydreams and master of missing social cues, was kissing him.

Joy bubbled up in John's chest, forcing itself from his body in a breathless laugh that had Rodney pulling back with an uncertain smile.

"Well," Rodney asked through swollen lips, breathless and flushed like every wet dream John had ever had. "How's my hypothesis holding up?"

John laughed again, gruff and happy, "Rodney, you are a genius."

Rodney grinned and allowed John to pull him into another kiss. "It's about time you noticed."

John rolled his eyes and let Rodney's lips and tongue and fingers chase away any chance of another nightmare.


End file.
